1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive display system for displaying driving information for the driver on the instrument panel of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIGS. 7 and 8 show conventional automotive display systems employing a reflector or reflectors for remote displaying to enable quick visual recognition of indications.
The automotive display system shown in FIG. 7 comprises a display 13, such as a liquid crystal display or a fluorescent character display tube unit, disposed under the meter hood 12 of an instrument panel 13, a semitransparent mirror 14 disposed in the display area of the instrument panel 11, and another display for displaying images which can be superposed on the virtual image 15 of the image displayed on the display 13. An image displayed on the display 13 is projected on the semitransparent mirror 14 for the visual recognition of the virtual image 15 of the image displayed on the display 13. The virtual image 15 seems to be displayed behind the semitransparent mirror 14 at a distance corresponding to the distance between the semitransparent mirror 14 and the display 13 from the semitransparent mirror 14 to give the effect of remote displaying.
The automotive display system shown in FIG. 8 comprises a display 23 disposed within the hood 22 of an instrument panel 21, a reflector 26 disposed opposite to the display 23 to reflect rays emanated from the display 23, a semitransparent mirror 24 disposed so as to reflect rays reflected by the reflector 26 to enable the visual recognition of the virtual image 25 of an image displayed on the display 23, and another display 27 for displaying images which can be superposed on the virtual image 25. Since the optical distance traveled by the rays is greater than that of the automotive display system of FIG. 7, the effect of remote display of the automotive display system of FIG. 8 is greater than that of the automotive display system of FIG. 7.
The conventional automotive display system shown in FIG. 7 reflects the image only once by the semitransparent mirror 14 and hence the effect of remote displaying of the automotive display system is unsatisfactory. However, increasing the optical distance by increasing the number of reflections requires increase in space for forming a comparatively long optical path entailing increase in the size of the automotive display system.